Provocations

The recent UN report on the Israeli invasion of Gaza - from the source, Justice Goldstone

In their attempts to be fair, the mainstream media has been pretty flabby on the recent report by Justice Goldstone on the Israeli invasion of Gaza. Here's an interview with Goldstone himself which describes the report with some clarity. It also emphasizes how much opinion is from people who haven't read it and those who object giving no reasons for their stance against the report.

Canadian doctors encourage US citizens to go for real health care

A little truth to dilute the poisonous lies being spread in the US.

Canadian Doctors for Medicare hosted a celebration of Medicare in Canada. The speakers included Roy Romanow, former Saskatchewan Premier and Commissioner on Health Care in Canada. They tell Americans that Canadian universal health care works and encourage Americans to implement a single payer universal health care systems.

Survival International's 'Top 3 Places Not to Go on Holiday'

Some good advice from the people who walk the talk.  -  JN

SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE    3 August 2009

TOP 3 PLACES NOT TO GO ON HOLIDAY

Tourism to tribal communities can easily become exploitative if not sensitively managed.
© Adrian Arbib/Survival

As the holiday season enters full swing, Survival International today names three destinations holidaymakers should avoid:

•    Barefoot Resort, South Andaman Island, India
•    Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Botswana
•    ‘First contact’ expeditions, West Papua

Barefoot India has established a tourist resort near the edge of the reserve created to protect the Jarawa tribe. The resort puts one of the world’s most recently-contacted tribes at risk from swine flu and other diseases to which they are likely to have little immunity.

The Botswana government is promoting the Central Kalahari Game Reserve as a tourist destination, and is allowing a safari company to build a lodge that will use large amounts of water. But it refuses to allow the Bushmen to use a single water borehole inside the reserve.

Treks to meet isolated tribes in West Papua, Indonesia – including one offered by American ‘adventurer’ Kelly Woolford to an area where tribes supposedly ‘have had no contact with the outside world’ – could, if true, have catastrophic consequences.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘Responsible tourists should keep well away from areas where uncontacted or recently-contacted tribes live. There are numerous cases where at least half of a tribe has died from disease soon after their first contact with outsiders.

‘Many of the Kalahari Bushmen would welcome tourism on their own terms. But promoting tourism while the Bushmen go thirsty is a slap in the face. Visitors will be sipping cocktails in the bar while the Bushmen living nearby are forced to travel hundreds of kilometres to access water.

‘There’s nothing wrong with tourists visiting tribal peoples who have been in routine contact with outsiders for some time, but only if the tribal people want them to, have proper control over where they go and what they do, and get a fair share of the profit. Unfortunately, this hardly ever happens.’

• Download Survival’s tourism advice leaflet
• Read this story online

David Simon's 'The Wire' lays it bare

Still think there might be some value to "the war on drugs"? I challenge you to watch this video and still have some justification for that thought.

Think the war on drugs is BS but can't articulate very clearly why? Watch this video.

Wonder why inner-city stuff seems predictable and stuck? Wonder what's going on in the "world's most livable city" - Vancouver - where every few days a gang member is killed?  How will that end up?

Who really cares?

Sick of reading stats and hearing platitudes?

Watch this video. It's well-presented.

Then, you may well decide to watch the second half.

"When television history is written," one critic says, "Little else will rival 'The Wire.'"And when historians come to tell the story of America in our time, I'll wager they will not be able to ignore this remarkable and compelling portrayal of life in our cities.  - Bill Moyers.

OK. Enough said.

George Monbiot exposes Shell's flimsy alternative energy figleaf

Ever wanted to sit down with an oil CEO and ask some clear and direct questions? George Monbiot is very good at asking clear and direct questions. Bearing in mind that, at least in the USA, a CEO's first priority is to his/her shareholders, he reveals that this emperor has little more than an advertising fig leaf.

Making space for the reality of Gaza

The other side of the Gaza story (the inside story) is having a tough time getting out. The (North American) media are inundated with PR interviews supporting Israel's actions, while Israel has forbidden reporters entering Gaza. A further sign of imbalance is this post I found today on a forum I moderate. The forum is on agriculture and the poster, knowing it was an inappropriate place, apologized and went ahead anyway. I'll remove it from the forum and give it an audience here.

Subject: Stop the Violence (sorry to write here )
Website: www.mayanafarms.com
Email: bbkewalrams@yahoo.com
Are you a farmer/gardener?: farmer
Message: On Monday, Masouda al-Samouni lost her 10-month-old son to an Israeli missile attack. She had been preparing food for the baby when the missile struck. "He died hungry," she said. With 1.5 million people, the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely crowded areas in the world, and Israeli artillery, tank and missile fire can easily cause civilian casualties and deaths. At least a quarter to one-third of deaths in the recent attacks have been civilians. Unlike other conflicts, where there's a chance to flee the war zone, Gaza itself has become the war zone, and there's nowhere else for the population to go. Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas rocket attacks, but this "war" is a disproportionate response, placing thousands of civilians at risk of injury and death. So far, Israel has resisted international calls for a ceasefire. The United States has a special relationship with Israel. Let's use that goodwill to bring an end to the violence in Gaza. More than 600 innocent civilians are killed till today.

Supreme Court in Brazil Upholds Land Rights of Indigenous People

Some good news (via Survival International):

Indians across Brazil are celebrating today as the majority of judges in the Supreme Court ruled to uphold indigenous land rights in a key case. Indian representatives have called the decision, made yesterday on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a ‘great victory’.

The ruling concerns the indigenous territory Raposa-Serra do Sol (‘Land of the Fox and Mountain of the Sun’) in the Amazon state of Roraima. A small group of powerful farmers, who want the Indians’ land and are supported by local politicians, had petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the Brazilian government’s legal recognition of the territory. President Lula signed the territory into law in 2005.

Yesterday eight out of eleven Supreme Court judges affirmed the Indians’ rights to the land, saying it had been demarcated according to the constitution. They affirmed the importance of maintaining indigenous territories as single, continuous areas and stated that territories on Brazil’s borders do not pose a risk to national sovereignty.

Read on

Joe Bageant interview: US working class and the state of the nation

An interview with Joe Bageant, my favourite commentator on the US scene:

More from Joe:

• Joe Bageant thinks out loud "from the Cheap Beer Zone"
• Where young US liberals get their news
• Television has no effect?
• Joe's blog

De Beers stops mining on Kalahari Bushmen land

Finally, it looks like some substantial good news for Botswana's Kalahari Bushmen:

SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE
29 October 2008

BOTSWANA: BUSHMEN AND SURVIVAL FORCE DE BEERS WITHDRAWAL FROM KALAHARI RESERVE

Following pressure from Survival International, De Beers says it has stopped operations on the land of the Kalahari Bushmen in Botswana because those it consulted, including Bushmen living inside the reserve, did not agree with its plan to explore for diamonds near a Bushman community.

De Beers began its latest operations in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve only last month. The company says it has no intention of carrying out any further activity there, and will not do so unless and until a sustainable, long-term management plan is agreed.

This is a huge victory for the Bushmen – but diamond mining still threatens their survival. De Beers retains a number of prospecting licences in the reserve.

Another diamond company, Gem Diamonds, is also prospecting inside the reserve. Although it claims to have some local support, it is operating while Bushmen are still being bullied and harassed and are unable to get any proper legal advice. This puts the Bushmen in no position to agree fairly to anything. Despite the Botswana High Court’s 2006 ruling affirming the Bushmen’s rights, the government is still preventing them from accessing their water borehole and forbids hunting.

Bushmen have told Survival that until all those unlawfully evicted are allowed back on their land with access to water and hunting permits, they consider diamonds mined by Gem to be tainted. One said, ‘It is a lie that Gem is doing anything for the Bushmen. They do not care about us – they only work with the government.’

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said today, ‘Any talks between diamond companies and the Bushmen under current conditions make a mockery of the concept of free, prior and informed consent, which is the cornerstone of both the UN declaration on indigenous peoples and the international law.’

The president of Botswana, General Ian Khama, whose government continues to oppress the Bushmen and allow mineral prospecting on their land, is a board member of the environmental NGO, Conservation International – adding further insult to the Bushmen’s predicament.

Major award given to persecutor of Bushmen people

For some years, in this blog, I've tracked the fate of the Kalahari Bushmen in Botswana. I winced at  today's news that the very leader who denied them their rights has been awarded a prestigious and lucrative award for 'Achievement in African Leadership'.  Apparently Botswana president Festus Mogae's success in countering corruption allowed the the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to ignore the less humanitarian side of his government, which has seen the Kalahari Bushmen hounded from their tribal lands and persecuted, even after the Botswana High Court ruled against government repression.  The Foundation certainly cannot claim they were unaware of this highly-publicized persecution. Much of the credit for the publicizing can go to Survival International. Here's their press release on today's award:

BOTSWANA: SURVIVAL DENOUNCES 'GOOD GOVERNANCE' AWARD TO MOGAE

Survival International today criticized the Mo Ibrahim Foundation for awarding its 'Achievement in African Leadership' prize to Festus Mogae, the former president of Botswana who oversaw the eviction of the Kalahari Bushmen from their land.

Festus Mogae's government evicted the Bushmen from their ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in 2002, and banned them from hunting and gathering.

Bushman hunters were arrested and tortured; those protesting peacefully against the evictions were arrested and shot at; and at least one woman died of starvation and thirst when Mogae's government shut down the borders of the reserve.

The Bushmen filed a legal case against the government, and in 2006 the Botswana High Court declared the evictions 'unlawful and unconstitutional'. One of the judges said the government's refusal to allow the Bushmen to hunt 'was tantamount to condemning the [Bushmen] to death by starvation.'

But the government, headed by Mogae until April this year, continues to prevent the Bushmen from returning home. It refuses to let them pump water from an unused borehole in one of their communities, or to let them hunt for food.

The Botswana government is now pressing ahead with plans to mine diamonds and develop tourism on the Bushmen's land.

Survival's director Stephen Corry said today, 'It's not that difficult to please the majority, but good governance demands respect for minorities, especially those discriminated against like the Kalahari Bushmen. President Mogae's tenure overturned decades of tacit respect for Bushman land rights. What he initiated still threatens the survival of the Bushman tribes in the central Kalahari. This prize makes a mockery of 'good governance'.'

The Mo Ibrahim Prize consists of US$5 million over 10 years and US$200,000 annually for life thereafter. The committee awarding the prize included former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and former High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson.

See also:

• Botswana police shoot Kalahari Bushmen
• Kalahari Bushmen evicted at gunpoint and their houses burnt down
• Kalahari Bushmen trial in Botswana ends in chaos
• Botswana government's attempt to silence and remove the Kalahari Bushmen gets nastier
• The Kalahari Bushmen's struggle to retain their land, culture and existence